The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-07-30

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mel looked at them a moment, then, down
the solitary, white road.
"Pass, then, quickly" he said, stand.
ing aside, and they found themselves on
the road to Aubervilliers. How the big
fellow laughed
Indistinctly, as in a dream, young
Stenne noticed the factories that now
were used as barracks and garnished with
wet rags. and the high chimneys that
pierced the fog and threw up their empty,
broken walls toward the clouds. Here
and there asentinel; hooded officers scan
ming the horizon through their glass; lit
tie tents soaked with thawing snow be-
fore which the campfres were dying.
The big fellow knew the roads we'll, and
where to cut across the fields to avoid
the pickers; still, Notwithstanding these
precautions, they fell upon an outpost of
sharpshooters, wrapped in their short
cloaks and huddled up in ditch half full
of water, that runs along the railroad
track OF Scissors. Here the big fellow
repeated bis tale in vain; they would not
allow him to pass. While he stood there
complaining, an old sergeant stepped out
OF the crossing keepers house; his hair
was white, and with his wrinkles he looked
somewhat like Father Stenne.
"Come, come, boys, don't stand there
crying" he said to the children, "they'll
let you through after your potatoes; but
just come here and get warm. That
youngster looks frozen"
Alasl Young Stenne was trembling all
over, not with the cold, but with shame
and fear. Inside they found few SOL
diers crouching around dying fire-a
real widows fire as they say-in the fame
of which they we're trying to thaw some
biscuits on the point end of their bayo-
nets. They moved up close to make room
for the children, and gave them little
coffee and drop of brandy. While they
were drinking an officer called out to the
sergeant from the door, said few words
to him and hurried off.
The sergeant returned in high glee.
"Boys p he said, "grog all round to-
night; we have got the password of the
Prussians, and this time think we'll
take Bourget away from them"
There was burst of applause, and the
men began to dance and to sing, while
some OF them polished up their bsyonets.
Taking advantage of this confusion the
children escaped.
Beyond the trench they struck the
plain, at the end OF which doomed up a
long white wall, broken by loopholes.
They made straight for the wall, stopping
at every step to look as if they were pick
ing up potatoes.
"Let us go home-don let us go on, /"
young Stenne kept saying. The other
merely shrugged his shoulders and kept
on advancing. Suddenly they heard the
clicking of gun being cooked.
"Lie DOWN. cried the elder, throwing
himself on the ground.
AS he lay there he whistled-and an
other whistle answered over the snow.
They advanced, slowly creeping on all
fours. On level with the ground, and
just before the wall, yellow mustache
appeared under greasy cap. The big
boy jumped into the ditch by the side of
the Prussian.
"That is my brother" he said, pointing
to his companion.
The boy Stenne was so small that the
Prussian began to laugh as he looked at
him, and seized him in his arms to Lift
him up to the break in the wall on the
other side of which rose heavy earthen
entertainments, cut tree trunks, and black
holes in the snow, in each of which you
just saw the same greasy cap and the
same yellow mustache that laughed as
the boys passed.
In one corner stood the gardeners
house with tree trunks for easements.
The lower floor was full of soldiers play
ing cards, while some were cooking a
stew over a large fire. 1t smelt so good
of cabbage and lard; what difference
between that and the sharpshooter's
camp. Upstairs the officers were playing
the piano and uncorking champagne, and
gave a joyful cheer as the boys entered.
They gave their papers and the men be-
gan to give them wine and to make them
talk. Most of the officers looked like
proud, fierce men, but the big fellows
slang and his csddish, monkeyish man
ners seemed TO amuse them vastly. They
laughingly repeated the words after him,
taking curious delight in wallowing in
the mud which he brought them from
Paris.
Young Stenne would have liked to say
something, too, SO as to show them that
he was no fool either; but something en-
barrassed him. A little to one side, and
facing him, sat Prussian, older than the
rest, and more serious. looking. He was
reading, or pretending to read, for he
never took his eyes of the boy, and there
was something of tenderness and some-
thing of rhnroach iT hia look aa thnuOh